Saturday, April 17, 2010

Epping Forrest, sun and mud

Lots of photos today. ThingOne started our day out dressed as in this photo. She ended it with no top on under her dress, different leggings, a muddy vest, no socks, and no knickers.

We had a fab day today, meeting up with friends Wendy and Craig, with their nearly-eight-month old son Jamie. We went to Epping Forrest, for no better reason than it was half way between our houses.

The day got sunnier and hotter as it went on, and our girls had great fun climbing on fallen tree trunks, running around, and just generally looning. The grown ups enjoyed the walks in the woods and the decent pub lunch in the sun.

ThingOne had wellies on, which was fortunate as she decided to stomp around in deep mud. We weren't keen, and warned her that she could get very muddy.Of course, ThingOne knew best. I said that if she wasn't careful her boot would get stuck in the mud and she'd get a dirty sock. Either that or she'd fall over and get muddy hands. Or perhaps both.

As it was all of this happened and she got very very muddy. Fortunately, having been a dad for over four years now, I knew exactly what to do. As soon as I sensed she was having trouble and might fall over I was able to whip out the video camera in order to preserve the satisfying moment. It's included below (or here) for history.

I think after this valuable lesson in "Mum and Dad Know Best" ThingOne will always listen to us and do what we say. Yes, I think that's what will happen.

It was pretty disastrous, and ThingOne was very sad. It took us some time to clean her up (and rescue her boot) and we got pitying looks from sympathetic (though amused) parents who walked by.

We had some spare leggings with us, and ThingOne's shoes, so we were able to recover the situation, mostly. And a Mini Milk helped.

The day ended at Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, where the kids dressed up in Tudor outfits.We drove home very tired, having caught the sun a bit.

ThingOne doesn't want us to talk about the mud incident. She didn't specifically say I couldn't put it on YouTube and blog about it.